THE BACKGROUND:

In October 2014, I was hired by Havas Worldwide Sydney as a contract UX Manager to develop the UX strategy and design for two projects for their largest client, Defence Force Recruiting (DFR). Defence Force Recruiting manages the defencejobs.gov.au website and has the prime objective of recruiting applicants into various roles in the Australian Navy, Army and Air Force.

During my contract, I was assigned to develop the UX for two separate projects, as well as work with a Digital Strategist to devise recommendations for future improvements to the website.

THE BRIEF:

Project 1 - 'The Reserves': Devise the UX for a brand new 'Reserves' section of the website. The Reserves are part time roles in the Navy, Army or Air Force where recruits can receive training and serve for a minimum 20 days per year, while balancing personal commitments such as full time work or family. Currently, information on the Reserves is decentralised and specific to each service area (Navy, Army or Air Force), requiring the user to delve into an area before they can find information on part time Reserve service. The objective of the project is to consolidate information on the Reserves into a single new section which is accessible from the global navigation and traffic users towards specific service information.
Project 2 - 'Recruitment Center': Devise the UX for a re-design of the existing 'Recruitment Centre' section of the website. The Recruitment Centre serves a dual role; firstly, to provide information on eligibility and the recruitment process, and secondly to serve as a Help Centre, containing FAQs, downloads and DFR contact details. The objective of the UX redesign is to devise a new architecture for the section in order to bring it into alignment with the structure and design of the rest of the Defence Jobs website. Past user research has found that the content within the Recruitment Centre is crucial in assisting potential recruits complete their application, and therefore is an integral part of the overall site objective.

THE PROCESS:

PHASE 1: CONDUCT QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH & IDENTIFY USER PERSONAS, GOALS & MOTIVATIONS
As a contractor completely new to the product and user market, my first step in the project was to conduct some quantitative research in order to gain an understanding of the users of the website. As a result, I devised two simple surveys - one targeted at recent Defence Force applicants and the other at DFR employees. The results of the survey were crucial in painting a picture of the website audience, their background, objectives and pain points. In addition to the survey, I worked with the Digital Strategist to evaluate analytics data to find trends and devise a series of hypotheses on what activity/content is most like to result into a conversion.

The data from the survey results and analytics report was then used to create personas for both projects. Two personas were devised for the Reserves project. These were;

Darren Cooper the Over Achiever - is seeking an additional challenge and wants to leverage his existing skills in order to 'give back' to the community, and;
Mark Fallon the Employer - is a business owner with an employee who has signed up to the Reserves and is visiting the site because he wants to know how this will impact him and his business.

Three personas were developed for the Recruitment Centre. It was found that Recruitment Centre targeted a much wider audience than Reserves as it also served the needs of applicants chasing a full time career in the Defence Force. The personas were;

Sean Williams the School Leaver - is completing high school studies and concerned about the cost of tertiary education and how this will impact his prospective job opportunities
Karen Arnold the Sea Changer - a professionally trained member of the civilian work force looking for a career change into an area that is exciting and personally rewarding
Lisa Simmons the Influencer - a mother who has a child interested in a career in the Defence Force and wants to educate herself on what this involves and how it will impact her family.

User Personas for Reserves and Recruitment Centre projects - defencejobs.gov.au

PHASE 2: MAP USER JOURNEY & DEVISE CONTENT ARCHITECTURE

Once the User Personas were established I was able to base my subsequent tasks around meeting the user goals and objectives. This involved;

Conducting a thorough content audit of the site to identify any content gaps
Host card sorting sessions with internal Havas staff that identified with a cross section of the different persona types
Devise section architecture through creating a site map
Map the user journey of each person through the product

Throughout the process, I was able to categorize the different type of content on the site based on it's objective and the need it served during the users journey. Three categories were found;

Discovery content: All pages that contained content about what it is like to be in the Defence Force, including information about lifestyle, fitness, training, pay and benefits. The primary objective of discovery content is to inform and inspire the user.
Consideration content: This refers to the job listing pages which are the most visit pages on the site. Users navigate from job page to job page, exploring options and comparing careers, in order to find a role that appeals to them the most
Intention content: This is content that the user consumes as they become more committed to the idea of joining the Defence jobs. By this stage they usually have a role/s in mind and are looking into what is required in the recruitment process

It was found that the user journey was anything but linear with users 'window shopping' through multiple job pages, then seeking discovery content, then going back to job pages. The site also failed to identify between first time users and multiple visit users, missing opportunities to serve content based on their browsing history, ie; serving roles similar to viewed roles, or serving discovery content that they haven't viewed yet.

Sitemaps & User Journeys for Reserves & Recruitment Centre projects - defencejobs.gov.au

By categorizing the different types of content pages, we are able to set clear objectives for each section in order to help the user throughout their job search journey. The more informed the user was about life in the Defence Force, the more confident and likely they were to apply for a role and convert.

PHASE 3: WIREFRAMES & FINAL DELIVERABLES

The final deliverable was to construct wireframes for both sections that supported the user journey and organized the content in clear and understandable page designs. The wireframes were not strict design directives to the Visual Design team, but rather a recommendation in how to arrange the content hierarchy on the page.

The end result was a clear and concise document which outlined a set of UX recommendations and wireframes. Key to this was to introduce 'Considered Call-to-Actions' which was a new functionality which tracked the users visits and provided suggestions on what content they should view next.

Wireframes & photos from the project room - Reserves & Recruitment Centre projects - defencejobs.gov.au

THE RESULT

By the time my contract came to an end in December 2014, the Reserves project was with the creative team and Recruitment Centre was being reviewed by my UX Manager. Both projects launched on the public website in August 2015.

Many thanks to Ryan Sproull, Leonardo Burlamaqui, Craig Page, Jason Carnew, Kate Harper, Shiv Suchdeva, Daniela Gillis, Adam Shutler, Nina Troeger and all the wonderfully talented people at Havas Worldwide Sydney for all their help on both projects.

Reserves Sample Screens
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